AMY CUTLER:

This is one of Amy Cutler's pieces that I absolutely love and will use as inspiration for my own architectural designs of cities, castles, etc. She has a very meticulous style, as this work illustrates nicely.

RAYMOND PETTIBON:

http://www.raypettibon.com/main.html

Raymond Pettibon was an artist suggested to me by Professor Dancy. His work is inky and sketchy with high energy. I have been using ink in my map a bit, so his style is something to consider.

RALF STEADMAN:

http://www.ralphsteadman.com/01art.asp

This is one of Ralf Steadman's pieces that I thought was awesome and hilarious. Most of his stuff is prints, but the detail and character development of the subjects is right up my alley.

I made it to the faculty show this past Sunday and as usual, it was excellent. Of course, there was Professor Dancy's "Room With a View" which had some great thick paint texture and some indications of human body parts perhaps. I also really loved Professor DiCapua's larger than life drawings (of a horse neck and hands holding a bowl). His attention to detail is phenomenal to the point of being photographic, and the largeness factor also reminded me of my own most recent work. After discussing my ideas in the last critique, the conclusion seemed to be that I should begin working on an actual map. Thus, I rolled out most of the paper I had, tea-bagged the heck out of it, and began drawing a map. I decided because of the long format of my paper, I decided on a style of map that split the world into two spheres. I then had no choice but to fill the gap between the two circles with a giant dragon. It was my intention with the design to line up parts of the dragon so that there would be the suggestion of a transition in between. We shall see where it goes from here.

This is my latest sketch of a Moian.

http://www.bobartlett.com/paintings/2009-penumbra.html

I can't figure out how to get images off his sight, but Bo Bartlett has some really awesome figure paintings. I especially like "Blind Tom" because it has otherworldly elements.

http://www.scottbokma.com/art.html

Also Scott Bokma has some phenomenal character designs that are wacky and twisted but totally unique and often hilarious.

AARON BAGLEY:

http://www.aaronbagley.com/

Oh my gosh I love this! Aaron Bagley has made me want to do more ink drawings

HEIDI ANDERSON:

http://www.heidianderikadraw.com/escape.html

Heidi Anderson's work is wonderfully colorful, with quirky whimsey that is similar to my pygmy painting. The first painting is in oil and has a lot of great character. Also, she uses watercolor, which I have been using more lately - she has some nice fading/blending techniques that give her art a dream-like quality.

NICK CAVE:

http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/

This is just one of many super funky Soundsuits by Nick Cave found at the Mary Boone Gallery that are inspirational for my own character designs. Although I have been looking at books of English Costume Design of the Later Middle Ages, I can also look at these crazy outfits to give my fantasy characters more of a 'wild' creation element.

Here is my character sketch of Bugbears/Bugaboos, done in black ink and orange watercolor, using an ink pen to label and describe on the more finished version.

I sketched out a character design for Pygmies, using watercolor to paint the image and then writing details, pointing out aspects of their culture and character. I intend to make similar character sketches of the other 10 countries.

I'm starting general and small - literally. I designed a Coat of Arms to stand for each of the countries in my world, using acrylic paint.

Without a strong focus on what I should be painting, I undertook to just start painting in oils, using myself as the subject. I had intended to make the scene fantastical and extraordinary, but what I found myself painting was an ordinary figure with slightly off proportions and only a half-thought-out concept. Although I wasted a good deal of time into this piece, it was important for me to realize that what I thought I wanted to do was not actually the type of figural painting I was ready for just yet. After talking with Professor Dancy, she made me realize that the size and subject matter I was interested in were just a little too overwhelming to undertake at this point. After going through my sketchbook, she pulled out an old map design I had done for the fantasy novel I am currently writing. The idea of a map was intrigung to her and I began to consider the idea myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to create a map of my fantasy world that encompassed everything about it. I had done a partial map of the land because creating a map of the entire area would have been too overwhelming at one go. After buying and taking out books on medieval maps, Renaissance dress, monster creation, and world cultures, the type of art I should be doing became very clear. Rather than attempt a realistic map on a single, large, flat piece of paper, I will collage pieces of history, culture, geography, etc. to map out the ideas racing through my brain already in an effort to organize information for my writing, but more importantly, so I can visualize the world I have created in its entirety. Maybe from my collaged elements, I will create another map that IS on a single, large, flat piece of paper, but I will not hold myself to that. Right now, I want to make a patchwork of different concepts, showing different cities, landmarks, peoples...everything, using different media, such as watercolor, gauche, acrylic, pen and ink drawings and more, where the process of piecing it all together is of the utmost importance.

BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS:

Barkley L. Hendricks at http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/user/BarkleyHendricks has some great figure paintings also.

TILL FREIWALD:

Till Freiwald does some phenomenal watercolor portraits reminiscent of Chuck Close's large portraits. Looking at Friewald's work will give me insight for painting faces.

GEOFFREY CHADSEY:

Geoffrey Chadsey at http://geoffreychadsey.com/home.html has a very unique style of figure drawing that really follows the contours of the body with line work. I enjoy his use of everyday people for his models, although some of his subject matter is a bit too suggestive for my taste. His use of overlap and invention of additional bodies or body parts is a fun tool that is intriguing for the viewer as well.

KEN TIGHE:

This painting is done by Ken Tighe, an artist I stumbled across when looking through blogs. His painting style is realistic, but painterly, and very full of energy. His most detailed paintings are the ones I am most fascinated with, especially his still life works. Check out his stuff at the following site: http://kentighe.virb.com/

DAN DOS SANTOS:

My two favorite artists right now are Dan Dos Santos, who works mostly in oil paint, and Dan Luvisi, who works in photoshop mostly. The artwork above is all Dan Dos Santos's work, which consists primarily of fantasy novel covers, and is very much the kind of art I want to do. A website that has other artist of a similar style involving figures is http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/

The following blogs are sites that I am interested in (*main site from which I found other sites). I will be posting more to follow documenting which ideas I am interested in and which styles I would like to emulate in my own work:

*http://finearttalk.blogspot.com/

http://paintingperceptions.com/

http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/

http://brenthallard.wordpress.com/

http://www.artsjournal.com/anotherbb/

http://henrimag.com/blog1/